CHAPTER 7 #2
We talked to distract ourselves, just like in the shower.
At first, of what to expect at the cabin, how rural the mountainous area was, how many other Kolbeck pack wolves might be out there.
Then we moved onto more complicated topics.
Like what else Michael could expect from the bond and my power, and what I could expect from his.
The longer we talked, the clearer it became that we couldn’t stay here, that we couldn’t be anywhere near others of our kind.
At least not until we had iron control over our new abilities.
I shifted a little in between paint strokes, trying to get comfortable on the floor. “No wonder Anna said other MacKenzie survivors live like hermits after mating.”
Michael paused in his work. “Is that a new memory surfacing?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Just an offhand comment she made that took a back seat to the bigger revelations she left intact in my mind.”
Michael started back up, swirling the tip of the brush in a circular motion near the base of my spine. “Did she mention how long they remain hermits?”
I fought the urge to shift again, my discomfort both physical and emotional now. “Years.”
His exhale alighted over the wet ink on my back. “That won’t be us.”
“No?” He sounded so confident.
“No.” The paintbrush stroked over my spine. “I have faith that you and I will find a way to navigate our abilities in less time than most.”
“I hope so. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of being holed up with you somewhere for a couple of months is really appealing right now, but I am more than ready to stop feeling like a ticking time bomb.”
“As am I,” Michael said.
The tip of the brush skirted left somewhere in the middle of my back, toward my side. Good thing I wasn’t as ticklish as he was. “Why are your eyes black with your magic unbound?”
Michael lifted the brush from my skin. Pain lanced through my left wrist; he’d cut himself again.
I glanced over and saw him dribble more of his life force into the ink.
Help your mate! the bond shrieked. I wanted to tell it to shut the hell up, that he was the one hurting himself this time, but I was quickly starting to learn that the bond was even more primitive than I was, a thing of pure instinct that no amount of logic could placate.
“Have you ever seen a witch cast a spell up close?” Michael asked, swirling his paintbrush into the macabre concoction he’d created.
“No. The closest I got to that was the alleyway today, but I was more focused on her mouth than her eyes.”
“If you’d glanced up, you would have seen those eyes go black with power,” he said, pressing the tip of the brush back to my skin.
I frowned. “Is this why you think our magic is similar?”
“Not similar. The same. And partly, yes.”
“But you weren’t casting when I unbound you,” I pointed out.
“Like I’ve said previously, I believe wolves were created from witch magic, that we are therefore beings of magic. When we possess it in large enough quantities, it affects us in ways that it doesn’t the witches.”
“Do you have any hard proof, or is this just a theory?”
“It is just a theory,” he said. “My father is a rather powerful mystic. And so is my mother. She chose to reproduce with him on two occasions, hoping that their powers might multiply in offspring, much like the MacKenzie pack’s selective breeding program.
The result is myself and Elizabeth. Liz is less powerful than I am, for now, at least, so her eyes aren’t black.
We’ll see what happens when she reaches maturity and comes fully into her magic. ”
Hold up. “Your mother’s husband isn’t your father?”
“No. He’s Amy’s father. All my other siblings are a result of other pairings.”
What the actual fuck?
She will do anything for power.
I doubled over, gasping as the voice ripped through my mind.
Michael grabbed my shoulder, his touch reigniting the flames beneath my skin. “Layla? What is it?”
“A memory,” I choked out. “Anna’s voice. Warning me about your mom.”
“What did she say?”
My jaw clenched shut on my response, almost of its own volition.
Anna had taken my memories for a reason.
Her own possibly twisted reason, but a reason nonetheless.
A small part of me was hesitant to share her warning with my mate, but the larger part of me wanted to get the words out, wanted no secrets between us.
So why was it so difficult to actually tell him?
Had Anna done more than steal my memories?
Had she ordered me to keep things from Michael?
I fought to open my mouth for several heartbeats before finally managing, “She will do anything for power.” Michael was my mate, damn it, and I would tell him whatever I wanted to.
“In this case, I have to agree with the vampire.”
Well, that wasn’t ominous. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner about your family?”
Michael squeezed my shoulder and let me go. “I didn’t intentionally hide it. It was merely pushed to the side because of other, more pressing matters.”
I believed him. The shields on our abilities were back in place, but enough came through our connection that I felt his regret. A regret that wasn’t tinged by guilt or evasiveness.
“I think we really need this time in the cabin,” I said.
“To borrow your turn of phrase, hard agree.”
We fell silent then, lost to our own thoughts while Michael traced the temporary binding over my back.
The paintbrush moved higher and higher, nearly to the base of my neck.
Up until that point, I hadn’t felt any effects of the spell he drew, but a tightness began forming in my mind.
It felt like I’d been corralled into a small enclosure, and now the bars of that enclosure were shrinking.
I didn’t like it. It was bad enough that I neutered my own power on a daily basis.
To feel like someone else was caging me in was highly uncomfortable.
I distracted myself from my burgeoning claustrophobia by thinking of other things.
Like Mary. Michael’s mother would do anything for power.
And now she had me, mated to her mystic son.
I had just accepted our bond, hadn’t had time to think past tomorrow, let alone the threats that might emerge months down the road.
The future was a murky thing, filled with endless possibilities.
What if Michael and I eventually had kids?
Goddess only knew what Mary would do if she got her hands on baby superwolves.
Take them from us? Turn them against us? Make them her minions?
A snarl tugged at my lips. No. I would never let her take our pups.
“Layla,” Michael said. From the urgency in his voice, this might not have been the first time he called my name.
I shook my head, pushing my anger aside. The future was still unknown. Fearing what Mary might do in five years was pointless. Michael and I might decide not to have children. She could piss off the wrong preternatural and wind up dead. Anything could happen.
“I’m better,” I said.
Michael released a heavy exhale. “Anything you care to share with me?”
“It’s nothing worth dwelling on.”
“I have one more rune to go,” he said. “When I’m finished, the binding spell should snap into place. You may want to prepare yourself. It can be quite… uncomfortable.”
“I figured. My mind already feels like it’s in a vise.”
“Are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” I said.
Michael painted the last rune, and I realized I’d lied to him.
I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready at all. My vision swam when the spell snapped into place, the room disappearing as I dropped into darkness.
If my mind felt like it was in a vise before, now it was being put through a meat grinder.
Constriction beyond anything I’d ever felt bore down on me, so much magic sunk into the spell that I was crushed beneath the force of it.
I might have gagged again. I might have screamed.
Then the darkness seemed to swell, reaching for me with grasping hands, and I was drawn into its abyss.